Seven questions about Boy Scout gay policy coverage

June 5, 2013 By Leave a Comment
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Headlines over the Boy Scouts of America’s decision to allow openly gay members are still flying fast and furious.

There’s been so much recent coverage, actually, that it’s impossible to critique all of it in a single post. So I thought I’d ask seven questions related to the decision and news coverage of it.

1. Does the new Boy Scout policy conflict with Catholic teaching?

No, according to a Religion News Service report:

(RNS) The U.S. Catholic Church’s top liaison to the Boy Scouts of America is telling Catholic Scout leaders and troop sponsors that the BSA’s new policy welcoming gay Scouts “is not in conflict with Catholic teaching” and they should continue to support scouting programs.

2. Why did religious groups that opposed allowing gay Boy Scouts suddenly change positions?

The “On Faith” section of the Washington Post tackles this question:

What gives?

Experts say the Scout vote embodies the struggle going on today in traditional religion over homosexuality. There is a strong desire and effort to be more welcoming — and even affirming — of some equal rights, but not to back off completely. But that’s proving tricky to do.

Who are the “experts” who say that? This piece offers interesting analysis but provides inadequate attribution, it seems to me.

3. Will Southern Baptist churches leave the Boy Scouts over the new policy?

A mass exodus appears likely, according to CNN:

The Southern Baptist Convention, the country’s largest Protestant denomination, will soon urge its 45,000 congregations and 16 million members to cut ties with the Scouts, according to church leaders.

The denomination will vote on nonbinding but influential resolutions during a convention June 11-12 in Houston.

“There’s a 100% chance that there will be a resolution about disaffiliation at the convention,” said Richard Land, the longtime head of the Southern Baptists’ Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, “and a 100% chance that 99% of people will vote for it.”

“Southern Baptists are going to be leaving the Boy Scouts en masse,” Land continued.

4. Exactly how new are the Royal Ambassadors, an alternative scout group highlighted by the New York Times?

The Times (just two weeks behind RNS) suggests:

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Dueling Christian coverage, or Ira Glass vs. National Journal

June 5, 2013 By Leave a Comment

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Above is a nice little snippet of an Ira Glass interview. Interview of Ira Glass, I should say. The popular host of public radio’s This American Life reflects on why the show does so much good coverage of Christians. It’s because the media do such a bad job of covering them otherwise, he says. He says the Christians he knows and works with — including the “fundamentalists” — are nothing like how Christians are portrayed in the media.

I knew GetReligion readers would want to see the interview.

It’s also a great introduction to a piece that ran on National Journal, yesterday. Many reporters passed it along to us, including one who added the note:

Those crazy Christians are at it again!

Praying!

About major decisions!

You get a feeling for the reportorial prowess on display, the nuance, the journalistic integrity, with the headline alone:

The Things That God Tells Politicians
Mostly, it’s to run for president. But every now and then, the almighty may intervene in a leadership coup.

Do you want to read on? Neither do I! But, this being part of the job and all, I guess we will. Here’s the top of the piece:

In early January, House Speaker John Boehner was in crisis. After a brutal fiscal-cliff slog, Boehner’s speakership was in serious doubt, and a group of conservative House Republicans were preparing to drive in the knife. But that’s when, according to a new Washington Post story, God intervened.

Barely 36 hours after the caustic [fiscal cliff] New Year’s Day vote, Boehner faced a coup attempt from a clutch of renegade conservatives. The cabal quickly fell apart when several Republicans, after a night of prayer, said God told them to spare the speaker.

This, of course, is not the first time that God has been said to have stepped into U.S. politics. Here’s a brief look at some of the almighty’s supposed prior forays.

I’ll spare you the rest, on account of it being too early for this much juvenile snark, but it goes on to make fun of other Republicans praying.

What’s your favorite part of this story? Is it how it perpetuates the stereotype that Democrats are all godless and Republicans are all fundamentalists? Is it the drive-by, Buzzfeed-worthy substance of the post? Is it the complete missed opportunity?

See, I’d love nothing more than a critical and thoughtful look at how politicians use religion — a story that broached whether they use religion to manipulate or advance objectives. I’d love to see one that didn’t assume prayer was just a ploy. I’d love one that didn’t sound like it was written by a former Talking Points Memo staffer (which, in this case, would be difficult since National Journal apparently hired this reporter after stints at … Talking Points Memo, Salon, etc.). Just about anything would have been better than this drivel.

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Churches dumping Boy Scouts over gay policy … or not?

June 1, 2013 By Leave a Comment

Godbeat pro Bob Smietana wrote a story this week exploring whether churches will keep sponsoring Boy Scout troops or drop their affiliation given the organization’s new gay-friendly membership policy.

It’s a timely, logical religion angle. (Others who have covered that angle include ABC News and the Birmingham News.)

The lede:

For the Rev. Ernest Easley, the decision to cut ties with the Boy Scouts was simple.

The Bible says homosexuality is a sin. The Boy Scouts do not.

“We are not willing to compromise God’s word,” said Easley, pastor of the 2,300-member Roswell Street Baptist Church in Marietta, Ga., which has sponsored Boy Scout Troop 204 since 1945.

Easley, chairman of the Southern Baptist Convention’s executive committee, said his church will shut down its troop at end of the year, over a recently adopted policy to allow openly gay scouts. He’s urging other Baptists to do the same.

I first saw the story (one version of it, anyway) Thursday on USA Today’s website, where it carried this headline:

Religious regretfully sever Scout sponsorships

Huh?

At this point, I should remind GetReligion readers that reporters typically do not write their own headlines. So I’m assuming that Smietana didn’t craft that one.

But it struck me as awkward on more than one level. “Religious” seems especially vague. And while I assume the headline writer means that those severing ties are doing so with regrets, the statement also could be interpreted as an editorial comment, as in, “How dare they?”

On Friday morning, a truncated version of the same story (read: stripped to its bare bones) appeared on Page 1 of the USA Today dead-tree edition that I picked up in my driveway.

The headline on that version:

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Why can’t press get religion, when covering black churches?

May 31, 2013 By Leave a Comment

Let’s face it. The mainstream press really struggles when trying to cover life in African-American churches.

On one level, black churches are treated like giant political institutions that — in a city like Baltimore — speak for a crucial segment of the voting public.

There is some truth in that view. Any student of American religion knows that, for generations, the pulpits of major churches played a central role in black culture, a place where strong, prophetic voices could be heard during hard times when they were not welcome in the public square.

Thus, reporters will show up to hear black preachers talk about politics. But is there more to preaching in black churches than mere politics?

Journalists also know that the black church is a powerful force in culture, especially when it comes to music. How does anyone try to tell the story of popular music in America without focusing on the role that gospel musicians played in the birth of blues, jazz, funk and soul music?

So, yes, journalists know that the black church is a powerful force in the arts and in culture. But is there more to the music of African-American churches than that beat, that power and, yes, that soul? What about the content of the songs and hymns?

Now what else is missing in this picture?

I think it’s crucial for reporters to remember that we are, first and foremost, talking about CHURCHES, not political think tanks or concert halls.

Many times, while covering events in black churches over the years, I have heard pastors say something like this: Why is it that reporters always want to talk to me about politics, but the minute I start talking about Jesus they just aren’t interested?

I thought about that this morning while reading The Baltimore Sun obituary for the Rev. Harold A. Carter Sr., pastor at New Shiloh Baptist Church — a truly historic figure in our city on a number of different levels.

What is missing from this obituary? Try to guess.

The story starts strong and then, at a crucial moment, the Sun team simply drops the ball.

The Rev. Dr. Harold A. Carter Sr., senior pastor of the New Shiloh Baptist Church, whose legendary preaching spanned generations and brought him an audience beyond his congregation of 5,000 members, died of cancer Thursday. He was 76.

In 47 years of ministry, Dr. Carter preached with legends of the civil rights era, before his congregation in West Baltimore and to bigger audiences across America and in foreign countries. And for years, his resounding voice could be heard on Sundays on WBAL-Radio.

One sermon more than three decades ago — when he filled 14,000 seats in what is now the 1st Mariner Arena for an evangelistic crusade — still resonates with the Rev. A.C.B. Vaughn, the senior pastor of Sharon Baptist Church and a family friend.

“The greatest sermon he ever gave was his life,” said Vaughn. “Harold Carter was one of the crown jewels. His main thrust was prayer and evangelization. He had a passion for saving souls.”

That’s pretty good. So how does the story follow up on the key elements of his life, which were evangelism, prayer and preaching? By the way, he was also a leader in the evangelical Promise Keepers ministries for men, a major force for racial reconciliation in evangelical and Pentecostal Christianity.

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God and faith in Oklahoma tornado coverage

May 29, 2013 By Leave a Comment

In my first-person account of the Moore, Okla., tornado last week, I predicted that the faith and resiliency of the state’s residents would be a major theme in media coverage.

Sure enough, it has been.

I saw the devastation for the first time Sunday when I made my way to that side of Oklahoma City to work on a Christianity Today piece on the “Faith-Based FEMA”:

At the edge of the disaster zone — just across the street from the decimated Moore Medical Center — teens and adults in cowboy hats cook smoked sausages outside the Central Church of Christ.

This group of volunteers drove 430 miles from Denver City, Texas, southwest of Lubbock, to prepare meals for victims after last Monday’s EF5 tornado destroyed 1,200 homes and killed 24 people, including 10 children.

Inside the church, worshipers — many wearing bright orange “Disaster Assistance” T-shirts — at the Sunday service maneuver around ceiling-high stacks of emergency food and supply boxes delivered on a tractor-trailer by Nashville, Tennessee-based Churches of Christ Disaster Relief Effort Inc.

The church’s marquee sign along Interstate 35 normally grabs drivers’ attention with catchy Bible verses and witty sayings.

But now it declares simply: “Disaster Relief Center.”

Even as President Barack Obama consoles victims and promises the government’s assistance “every step of the way,” the so-called “faith-based FEMA” is already out in force — from Mennonite Disaster Service chainsaw crews to Samaritan’s Purse debris cleanup teams to Presbyterian Disaster Assistance pastoral counselors.

On the Sunday after a major disaster, news organizations often send reporters to cover worship services. The challenge is turning such a predictable assignment into a truly insightful story. I’m not so sure the Los Angeles Times accomplished that feat in its report on Sunday’s services in Moore.

Here’s the lede of the L.A. Times’ story:

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After the Boy Scouts? For a few, camping with doctrine

May 24, 2013 By Leave a Comment

When considering the forces pulling at the Boy Scouts of America, one thing journalists really needed to consider was a simple statistical chart that can be found (.pdf) on the organization’s homepage. Here are the crucial numbers found at the top of this file:

Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints — 37,856.

United Methodist Church — 10,868.

Catholic Church — 8,397.

Presbyterian Church — 3,597.

Lutheran Church — 3,827.

Baptist churches — 3,981.

These are these numbers? That would be the number of Scouting units hosted by these particular religious groups.

I am well aware, as I have written in a previous post, that this chart doesn’t tell us everything in terms of Scouting’s internal divisions and tensions. Once again, that is this “Presbyterian Church”? How many of those are liberal Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) congregations, as opposed to congregations in the Presbyterian Church in America, or the Evangelical Presbyterian Church or, for that matter, more doctrinally conservative PCUSA flocks in the Sunbelt or elsewhere in flyover country?

The same question can be applied to that “Lutheran Church” reference. Are these part of the liberal Evangelical Lutheran Church in America or the conservative Missouri-Synod Lutheran Church? And those “Baptist churches,” are they Southern Baptist, American Baptist, independent Baptists, from one of the two National Baptist conventions or what?

But one thing is certain, given the realities shown in that chart. In keeping with trends in its own work, the Mormon leadership endorsed the policy of accepting openly gay Scouts, but no openly gay Scout leaders. The Mormon compromise was victorious.

Now, who comes next?

The United Methodists, that’s who. Outside the Sunbelt, there are few United Methodist congregations that will not accept, if not hail, this decision (unless they believe it does not go far enough).

Then how about your generic suburban American Catholic congregations?

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Brittany Griner: ESPN gets close to key question

May 20, 2013 By Leave a Comment

Truth be told, I still think that the question I asked a few weeks ago remains one of the most interesting questions one can ask about that big story that keeps unfolding down in Waco: “So, how did Brittney Griner end up at Baylor?”

That’s an interesting question for Griner.

That’s an interesting question for Griner’s parents and her wider family.

That’s an interesting question in terms of gossip about national-level hoops recruiting.

That’s an interesting question in terms of Baylor University’s standing as a Baptist institution that prominently promotes its stance as a Christian campus.

You just knew that, after Griner announced that she is a lesbian, this story was going to have long news legs. The latest story from ESPN raises a few interesting questions and at least acknowledges a key document in the situation.

Still, the heart of the story remains something that has not yet been proven — that Griner actively opposed how Baylor, and perhaps her own family, handled her emerging stance as a gay woman. Here is the top of the story:

Former Baylor women’s basketball star Brittney Griner says that Kim Mulkey, her college head coach, told players not to be open publicly about their sexuality because it would hurt recruiting and look bad for the program.

“It was a recruiting thing,” Griner said during an interview with ESPN The Magazine and espnW. “The coaches thought that if it seemed like they condoned it, people wouldn’t let their kids come play for Baylor.”

Griner, now preparing for her first WNBA season with the Phoenix Mercury, casually acknowledged she was gay during interviews with USA Today and with SI.com last month, when she referred to herself as “someone who has always been open.” Griner said she had been open about her sexuality with family and friends since she was a freshman at Nimitz High School, in Houston.

Well, the truth — of course — is that Baylor does not condone sexual activity outside of marriage and, thus, from the point of view of traditional Christian faith, does not condone gay sexual activity.

Now, Griner is quoting saying that it was an “unwritten law” not to TALK about sexual orientation. That’s a key issue from the point of view of public relations, recruiting (in all forms) for the university, etc., etc.

That is an issue of image and it’s certainly true that Baylor could come off looking badly, when it comes to demanding, or at least urging, Griner to keep silent. It would be interesting to know if her family played some role in that, too. After all, Griner told Baylor coaches she was gay during the recruiting process. It’s clear that they reached some kind of agreement.

Once again, there’s that question: How did the nation’s No. 1 recruit end up in Waco?

Anyway, Baylor’s stance on sexual ethics is in writing and, to its credit, the ESPN team goes to the source.

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In post-denominational age, what’s in a name?

May 11, 2013 By Leave a Comment

Joe Carter, our newest GetReligionista, referenced Southern Baptist name-change discussions in a post earlier this week. It’s a topic that GetReligion has tackled a time or two before — or more.

I bring up the subject again because I came across a fascinating Miami Herald news-feature this week with this headline:

For some Baptists, the name of the church is hindrance to saving souls

The top of the story:

After 87 years, the University Baptist Church of Coral Gables recently shed its name for something it felt was more forward looking — Christ Journey.

It was following the lead of First Baptist Church of Perrine, which dropped the name it had held for 89 years in favor of Christ Fellowship.

Coral Baptist Church of Coral Springs relaunched itself in 2006 as Church By the Glades.

And First Baptist Church of Fort Lauderdale is now known as “First Fort Lauderdale” in its new website. The word “Baptist” is found in a faintly lettered tagline.

These South Florida churches are joining a growing number of Southern Baptist congregations around the country that are quietly moving away from their denomination’s historic namesake — worried that it conjured up images of pipe organs, narrow-mindedness or stuffy, formal services.

The reality, pastors say, is that many modern Baptist churches mix their liturgy with rock bands and gourmet coffee, and sermons are more likely to be about personal growth than fire and brimstone.

This is one of those “growing number” trend stories that never actually provides any concrete statistics to back up the nut graf up high. Alas, I’ve written similarly vague summaries myself, so I won’t be too critical of that lapse. I do wonder, however, if the Southern Baptist Convention actually tracks the number of member churches that don’t use “Baptist” and how those figures have changed in recent years.

It’s not as if this trend is breaking news: I did an Associated Press feature in 2004 contrasting the approaches of Ed Young’s Second Baptist Church in Houston and Ed Young Jr.’s Fellowship Church, a non-Baptist “Baptist” megachurch in Grapevine, Texas. Christianity Today, meanwhile, notes that Rick Warren’s Saddleback Community Church is affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention.

Another concern for me: the editorially charged (as in, opinionated) descriptions of Baptist churches as “narrow-minded” and “stuffy” with no specific sources making those claims — and no one who might disagree given an opportunity to dispute the characterization. The same holds true in a later paragraph:

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